Restart of Acer buergerianum

This Acer buergerianum was imported from South Korea. The tree was healthy and in solid condition but had many wounds all over the trunk, the front side had a weak nebari and considering the fact that soil didn't absorb water normally, it was obvious that the tree was not repoted for a long time. My conclusion was that the tree was neglected for a longer time so I decided that I will rebuild it from scratch and make it a learning with experience lesson for myself.

Acer buergerianum - 2014

Acer buergerianum - 2014

The first step was repoting in spring. When i took the tree out of the pot I found out that the roots have grown around the pot several times because there was no more space in the pot. Even with this variety which is tolerant to all kind of stress this would soon affect the health of the tree. So my advise if you buy trees from resellers, even if they tell you that it is ready to be styled, don't take the risk and at least check the roots before you start to work on the tree. 

Roots before repoting

For the first step the plan was to make the tree as strong as possible so the wounds would close faster. Because of this I decided to plant the tree in a bigger but shallow pot and prepared an aggressive feeding plan. In combination with the aggressive feeding regime the branches ware left almost free to grow and in one growing season some wounds between 2 and 3 cm diameter almost completely closed.

Last week at the weekly workshop where bonsai friends work together at Janez's place I decided to make a branch selection of primary branches and the first very basic styling. 

In the next season the plan is to continue closing the wounds and start to work on the nebari improvement. The last photo shows the current stage of the tree after one year of development.